This piece was initially done as my entry into the “He who explores” exhibition. I thought about what I had explored in my life and I concluded that my greatest exploration was about my relationship with women. I was an only child and went to an all boys’ school and I did not know many girls growing up. Hence I had to go through trying to decipher lots of the junky messages that were around during those times about the role of women.

As a result I created this piece with lots of little characters fighting their way through the junk to finally reach their goal of arriving at an appreciation of women. I still can’t say I have it completely right, but does anyone?

The piece was not accepted for the exhibition (hence my grumpy looking photo) but I felt it was appropriate to the theme for this exhibition.

(Some of the little characters were recycled from some pieces I made for an exhibition titled “greetings”)

This piece was for an exhibition of Art Teacher’s Art. It was part of a duo of a tick and a cross. As both were made out of junk I thought they really showed what in many cases is the reality of a tick and cross.( Just one person’s opinion- especially in art!)

 For this exhibition I lifted it “up” and thought that the struggles of my little characters were typical of many of us when we start on a difficult task without thinking of the overall picture. These little guys are going to not achieve their ends of trying to tip it over due to the nature of the structure.

This is the second of the recycled BSG pieces from an exhibition held earlier this year. The girl certainly looked expectant by the pose and I am always amazed by how much we read body language even in such simple abstracted bodies. However she had no reason to look expectant so the addition of the heart gives her a focus and I guess we have all laid our hearts out at some stage in the hope that someone will notice. I like it much more now and she is looking….. you’ve guessed it… “Up”!

This is the second piece aimed at the “cult of personality”

 The Mao figure I made out of shiny bits of junk with a rusty back propped up with sticks. I had just read the biography of Mao by Jung Chiang and figured he was a real monster whose image was not really reflective of the reality. To fit this exhibition I included a ball as a nod to ping pong diplomacy and the interaction with the west that China has had in recent years. The ball is up!

Number three in this series. I was fascinated by Hitler when I was young as I could not believe such views could exist and that a whole people could be swept into evil by the vision of one man. My sculpture uses the cut out shape of Hitler but the mother and child are rejecting that path and heading in a different direction.

The up aspect is the positive rejecting the negative!

This is a brand new piece for this exhibition. I figured an up arrow would be good and I played with the idea of how it could sit. In the end the frame around it means it can be a down arrow or a sideways arrow so maybe that might be a future exhibition. Throughout the year I have done a series of simple but large geometric forms and although this piece really has little meaning apart from up, I feel it is positive and the scale makes it enjoyable and I feel interesting in itself.

We went and had a look at the “wild man” sculpture by Ron Mueck at the McLelland Gallery in Frankston and I was very impressed with the detail of care and expression shown in the sculpture. The man is 3 meters tall and the chair is almost unnoticed apart from as a prop for the man. This is a sort of homage (within my limited abilities) to the “wild man” but I thought more of the time when we were young and a high chair was High!  It certainly fits the Up theme.